A Watermelon, a Fish and a Bible

by Christy Lefteri

  Paniko takes Vakis’ small backpack and puts it behind the counter, then Vakis sits down. At first Vakis’ closely shaved head bobs over his chest, but then, for some reason, as though mustering the last bit of energy he has, he lifts his eyebrows and looks around with half interest at the café. Richard notices that he is looking at these new surroundings, not with excitement, but with the air of someone both unimpressed and over-whelmed.

  Paniko returns with the coffees and takes his own cup stiffly. His eyes look worried. His hand trembles slightly. He opens his mouth to speak, but closes it again. He sips the coffee. He takes a deep breath. ‘Maria?’ he says suddenly, and the boy shakes his head dejectedly and continues to bite his nails. Richard sits upright in his chair and feels his nerves moving. Perhaps this boy could be his link to Kyriaki? Perhaps he knows something, has heard something? But then Paniko freezes for a moment with the coffee in his hand and speaks again. ‘Andreas?’ The boy shakes his head once more. ‘Panny?’ Paniko asks now, his voice trembling. The boy shrugs this time and looks down.

  ‘What about Kyriaki, from Kyrenia. Do you know anyone called Kyriaki?’ Richard says, hearing the desperation in his own voice as though it were someone else speaking. Vakis looks at Richard with a blank look on his face.

  Paniko holds his cup in the air and slams it down into the saucer. The black coffee spills onto the tablecloth. His heavy features suddenly scrunch up and he stands there and sobs, with his shoulders jutting up and down. He does not speak. He sobs hard while Richard and Vakis look at the floor, then he stops abruptly and wipes his tears on his apron. He gazes out onto the heaving London street. ‘They will be here in only a minute,’ he says bluntly and then turns and disappears into the kitchen.

  He is right. In just a short while the café is brimming with Greek men of all ages, pulling up chairs and sitting down to steaming coffees and bread fingers. Vakis remains uninterested, only staring at the floor, with eyes like heavy sacks. Soon an old man passes and tells Richard that his face has become as familiar as that misplaced English portrait; pointing up at the wall, where a picture of some unknown, pompous-looking aristocrat sitting on a chair with a hunting dog by his feet hangs over a wicker breadbasket, in a humorous attempt, perhaps, to portray a forced acceptance of the foreigner’s vision of British culture. Richard feigns a laugh and sips his cold coffee. He smacks his lips together at the sudden bitterness of it. Bloody Greeks! he thinks. He should drink it all at once before it goes cold. There’s a reason why the British do things the way they do!

  At midday Paniko instructs Richard to show Vakis ‘round’. He says this, twisting his finger into a quick circular motion as though the task would be over just as briskly. Richard begrudgingly agrees and the two men stroll the streets of Soho, then along Piccadilly and up Regents Street in silence. Vakis looks mostly at his feet as he walks, but, every so often, cannot resist and gives in to the grand sights of London. At Trafalgar Square they sit on the low wall and watch the pigeons fighting for portions of bread. Hundreds and thousands of grey pigeons, dropping and rising, fluttering and scuffling as grey as the rain and the clouds and the drizzle, as grey as the pavements and the buildings and the soft mist. For a moment everything shimmers as though in the reflection of a lake, and Vakis sighs. ‘Really is beautiful!’ he says, without looking at Richard, and Richard nods as a pigeon waddles over to where they sit. It looks up at Vakis and Vakis laughs and reaches out his hand, but the pigeon panics and flutters madly away. Richard wonders what to say. Sorry for your loss is not enough. What this boy has suffered is not a mere loss, but an utter catastrophe. Sorry for your loss is what one would say to someone who has lost a relative to cancer or old age or an undetected heart problem. Sorry for your loss are not the words one utters to someone who has lost everything. Richard decides that it is wiser to remain silent, and they sit for a while and watch the pigeons padding about and, occasionally, swarming over a little boy or girl holding bread in their fingers.

  It is late afternoon when they get back to the café. ‘My God!’ announces Paniko, as they walk through the door. ‘What town rounds did you take?’ He tells Richard to take Vakis home, his wife should be in now, wait for him to wash and shower and bring him back in a few hours. Richard agrees, and they take the bus to Archway.

  Richard knocks on the door, and a moment later Elli opens it, already crying, and throws her arms over Vakis’ shoulders. She wails like a siren and pulls the poor boy’s arms, mumbling and screeching words in Greek. The boy watches her, seemingly unmoved by this spectacle, and starts to bite his nails again. She lets go of his arms, crouches, holds her knees, sighs, straightens herself, swallows hard, and then, as though that whole exhibition was performed by somebody else, she asks if they are hungry. Richard replies, ‘No thank you’ and Vakis shrugs. ‘Very well!’ she says, looking as dishevelled as a ragdoll amongst the sparkling ornaments and the grace of the Royal Doulton petite ladies and the translucent china of the Royal Albert figurines that line the console table and windowsill. Elli takes out a hairpin, opens it with her mouth, readjusts her hair and pins it back neatly. She shows the boy upstairs to the bathroom.

  Richard feels like a giant amongst the figurines. He notices that one of them is an unknown warrior of the Second World War, or perhaps the Cold War, a naval officer returning home, dressed in navy-blue and white. Elli walks down the stairs and follows his eyes. He remarks, ‘A nostalgia figurine, a proud tribute to the heroes of war. My mother used to collect them.’ Elli creases her brow.

  ‘Royal Doulton!’ she says. ‘The best china.’ Richard sighs, and she turns away from him as though he has wasted enough of her time and leads him into the kitchen, where she begins to heat up soup on the stove. Richard sits at the kitchen table.

  ‘The children?’ Richard asks.

  ‘At friend’s,’ she replies and continues to stir the soup. The soup bubbles and the kitchen fills with a lemony steam. Then, with a ladle, she fills two bowls to the brim, squeezes more lemon on to them and sprinkles them with salt and a little pepper. She places one bowl in front of Richard and another in the empty place where Vakis will soon be sitting. ‘Egg-lemon soup,’ she says to Richard.

  ‘For the one returning home,’ he replies, taking his spoon, and Elli suddenly looks at him as though he were a stray cat from the town sewers.

  ‘Home?’ she says, spitting. ‘You think this is home?’ Richard stares at her in fright, unsure whether she actually wants him to reply, and to his relief Vakis walks into the kitchen with a yellow towel round his shoulders. ‘Come,’ Elli says, pointing to the bowl of soup, and Vakis sits down, takes his spoon and laps the soup manically, like a hungry dog, without lifting his eyes from the bowl. Elli sits right next to him, with her chair positioned diagonally to face him properly and speaks to him endlessly in Greek. The boy nods every so often, and occasionally, when she is not looking, rolls his eyes at Richard. Richard smiles and listens to the lyrical words bouncing around the kitchen; she stops only to fill Vakis’ bowl again and then continues as before.

  By the time they get back to the café the sun has started to set, but it is not quite dark and the streetlamps are flickering on. Richard notices immediately that Nikos is sitting at the corner table, puffing on a cigar. The gold of his cufflinks twinkles slightly as he moves. Nikos nods as Richard and Vakis sit down at the table nearest the counter. ‘Ah!’ Paniko shouts, coming out of the kitchen, ‘my wife look after you well!’ Paniko lifts the apron over his head, tosses it on a chair and joins them at the table. There is sweat between his nose and his upper lip and the sides of his temples shine beneath the electric lights. He breathes heavily, his olive complexion almost starched. ‘She a good woman,’ he says, but Vakis does not reply. Paniko’s eyes look glazed and he focuses on the ceiling above Vakis’ head. He smiles to himself and then wobbles his head right and left, a gesture of good-humoured resignation. ‘Po, po, po,’ he says, and shakes his head again. ‘I remember one day, when I was a little older than you, V
akis, I saw beautiful woman on balcony. She tall, with black hair and skin gold! The most beautiful woman I saw! Like Aphrodite, or Greek god! She marvellous. Her face’ – he pauses, purses his fingers together and kisses them – ‘Manamou, mananou, manamou!’ he exclaims, shaking his head again. A bit of colour flushes his cheeks now. ‘So, I waited and after one week I went back and asked her father for permission to marry his daughter. The father looked me up and down. “You work?” he asked.

  ‘“Sure,” I said.

  ‘“You have money?” he asked.

  ‘“Some,” I said.

  ‘“Your father?” he asked.

  ‘“Alexandros of Pappa Georgiou,” I said.

  ‘“OK,” he said and called his daughter from inside. It wasn’t her, though. It was the eldest daughter, of course. She short and fat-arsed and dressed all in grey. She looks like should have been a nun. Anyway, no choice now, I ask Father, now must marry. One month later, she my wife.’ Paniko forces a laugh and wipes the sweat from his lip with the back of his hand. ‘She no beauty,’ he says, ‘and breaks camel’s back or even Atlas’ back, who holds whole world on his shoulders.’ He looks into Vakis’ eyes now. ‘She good to me, though, and good mother. There are worst!’ Now his features drop, and his eyes become distant again and his skin pale. He breathes heavily.

  ‘So they all gone?’ he says abruptly, unable, at first, to look at Vakis. The boy shrugs his shoulders nervously. Paniko shifts in his chair uncomfortably, and then he jolts upright. His face turns red. ‘How you no know, boy?!’

  Vakis looks up at him. ‘Pappou make me leave, he says when God want to destroy an ant, he puts wings on him so it can fly to its own destruction. He no want me to fight. He said, he who has brain will flee. So I fled. I must to go before them, otherwise I will forced to fight, they pack me off and say they follow soon …’ Vakis’ voice trails away now. ‘I no look back,’ he whispers, as though he is ashamed of his own words. ‘I just keep going, just keep going. I join convoy to Dekelia. We stopped few times for National Guard to check that no Turks with us. There one thousand cars and three thousand people. Anyway, I lucky, I have British passport, my family were of Greeks of nineteen fifties, I born here and moved back when I just two years old, so I OK to leave from British base.’

  Paniko raises his arms and pulls the sides of his hair. He looks, for a moment, like a man drowning. He then lowers his arms and taps his top pocket, looking for his cigarettes. His hand trembles. Richard feels the panic and utter hopelessness that his friend feels, but he does not say a word, takes his own box out and offers one to Paniko, who takes one, lights it and inhales deeply. The smoke crawls across his features.

  It is the end of another hard day’s work in the rag factories and the men come in and collapse into the chairs and call out for coffees and whiskies. Paniko disappears into the kitchen. There is a time of quiet, when the coffees have gone cold and the ashtrays are filled with olive pips and pistachio shells, and the only noises from outside are the rumbling buses and the singing sirens in the distance.

  Nikos stands up and throws a pack of cards onto the table. ‘Nikos, I may as well give you my underpants!’ says Yiakovos. ‘I will never beat you.’

  ‘Everything in its time and mackerel in August,’ replies Nikos, and smiles, pushing back his hair so that his gold cufflinks sparkle in the light. Yiakovos shakes his head. ‘No, I no give you my money again. I no play!’

  ‘You can’t dye eggs with farts!’ replies Nikos. ‘Wealth is a gamble!’

  Yiakovos reluctantly takes the cards out of the pack and starts shuffling.

  ‘There more of us today,’ says Nikos, looking around at Richard and Vakis. ‘Let’s play to forget,’ he says, looking over at Vakis. ‘New challenges,’ he says, this time eyeing Richard.

  Day 7: 26 July 1974

  There is a boat moving along the ripples of the sea at dawn. Maroulla looks at the horizon and the tip of the sun. Psaroboulis rows steadily and Koki watches the darkness turning purple, then navy-blue, with a tinge of citrus spilling over the scales of the sea. She watches the slow blossoming of black into oranges and golds. In the shimmering ripples of the water she sees her father serving breakfast to the morning guests and Agori running through the garden with a kite. No. She can no longer remember his face as it was. She sees it lifeless and still, as it was the moment he died. Almost unrecognisable, he wore it like a clay mask of himself. It is the spirit that gives the face shape; it is the spirit that heaves within us. Her heart aches and her stomach churns. She remembers Agori’s eyes like stones. They will never move again. She touches her chest where the crucifix lies beneath the folds of her dress. In the water she sees Adem, now, mending shoes in a stream of golden light.

  The oars break the water and Psaroboulis pulls, breathing out heavily through his mouth. The oars rise up now, splashing, and then plunge in again, followed by the same heavy pull. There is sweat on Psaroboulis’ brow and the deep creases on his face are visible in the light. They have stopped many times so he can take a break, and Litsa and Costandina had taken over for a while during the night. Now he has been rowing for hours, but despite the heat and the sharp rays of the morning sun, he has kept going. Inhaling and exhaling with the sea. He has not said a word, but every so often he hums a mournful song, his gruff voice almost muted by the moving of the sea. The women sit huddled together, with torn portions of their dresses tied around their heads to protect them from the sun. There is only a drop of water left, but they will save it for the baby. Koki feels as though her mouth is full of salt and that her pores are clogged with sand, and that her mind is full of darkness and the sound of that gunshot. Was he shot? She imagines the fear in his face and his last moments alone. Why would they have shot him? Had he sacrificed his life for theirs? Did they see him helping them? Or, did he shoot himself? Did he decide there and then that this awful life was too much? Koki weeps silently. She knows in her heart that she will never know the answer and that she will never see him again.

  Often, the women move restlessly and feet crunch on the base of the boat. Just then a flock of white seagulls fly overhead towards the grey-green haze of the Troodos peaks.

  Psaroboulis starts rowing inland and soon, soaked in the colours of the rising dawn, the edge of the land appears, surrounded by the trellised hills of the mountains. As they row nearer they see the nettle fields and green slopes, and, emerging from those fields, the white houses of the occupants, looking straight out into the rising sun like the faces of saints shrouded in white scarves, and, to the left, the white turret of Ayia Irini sparkling in the sun.

  There is not a fire in sight. Not a single tank or warship or soldier. The breeze blows and the smell of old Cyprus drifts over them; the comforting whiff of home-cooked meals and sweet red soil; the smell of life as they once knew it. And they look upon their surroundings as one would look at the face of a long-lost loved one, suddenly captured by that essence of longing and familiarity or a time capsule.

  Litsa stands up and holds her hand above her eyes. The boat rocks. All the women face the land with wide eyes and straight backs, and Psaroboulis finds, in the sight of this new land, a surge of energy, and pulls manically, excitedly, towards the shore. And soon the water is so shallow that the women can see the rippled rocks beneath and the tiny fish darting to and fro. ‘Kato Pyrgos,’ says Psaroboulis, speaking for the first time and looks ahead with his hand shadowing his eyes. The women squint. Behind them the sky and sea blend together in a haze of azure. Heat trembles at the tip of every shrub and every building. Psaroboulis wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. The sea laps the sand.

  Psaroboulis climbs out of the boat and into the water that reaches just below his knee. The women follow. He bends down, cups his hands, fills them with water and splashes it onto his face. Maroulla dips her fingers into the water. They all slog together towards the beach and stand motionless, for a few moments, on the land, somehow rocking as though their blood has kept the rhythm o
f the sea. After a kilometre of flat sand the land juts up, a small but sharp rising into Pyrgos. ‘Come on,’ says Litsa, ‘we must keep going.’ And they all bend their heads away from the sun and with their shadows pointing behind them they make their way into the small town of Kato Pyrgos. They pass a grove of eucalyptus trees and finally reach a thin, winding road; a white ribbon through the nettles and shrubs and dainty peach blossoms that brush at their feet as they trudge and trudge and trudge with what feels like their last breath, their last heartbeat. The young girls moan and cry, their lips cracked with dried blood, and the baby whimpers in Olympia’s arms, even the dog walks with its tail between its legs, all the while following Sophia’s footsteps. Every so often, when Sophia lags behind, the dog turns and waits until she catches up again. ‘Keep going,’ says Litsa, ‘just keep going, it won’t be long now.’ And somehow her voice gives them a surge of energy, if only for a few seconds, to straighten their backs a little and take an extra step.

  Maroulla suddenly points at something in a pool of shade beneath an olive tree. She remains transfixed, with her hand still outstretched. They all follow her gaze, and there, sleeping soundly, is a litter of kittens, huddled together, their paws crisscrossed in all directions. The dog growls slightly, but obeys Sophia’s command to sit. She taps its head. But the litter of kittens does not seem to be what Maroulla is staring at, open-mouthed. Behind the litter, in a hollow part of the tree, is a cat, probably the mother, licking its paws and devouring one of the kittens. She has blood on her whiskers. Sophia puts her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Sometimes cats eat cats,’ says Olympia, nodding, as though she is shocked by this realisation herself. But her voice is tired and her words not much louder than a whisper.

  ‘We must keep on,’ says Litsa. It is not too long before they see a donkey, as grey as the olive tree where it stands, and in the field beyond, a middle-aged man, crouched down, pulling turnips from the soil. He throws one into a basket and continues, cursing the sun and the heat. He does not turn around to see what the noise behind him is and simply raises his hand in salute when Psaroboulis calls, ‘My friend!’